This is a guest post by Tom Meitner, a work from home entrepreneur and a freelance writer who owns a very insightful and motivating blog, "The Practical Nerd". 

So you sit around a table with some close friends, chatting the night away while splitting a few bottles of wine. In conversation, you are talking about some of your current projects and plans for the future, and somebody makes a brilliant comment that sparks an idea that would bring all kinds of greatness to your business. But in the course of the evening, you drink a little more wine, have a great time, talk about other stuff, and forget about it.

You're driving around another day and you see a billboard with a funny picture on it. This gives you an idea that you could incorporate into your marketing. Then you drive away, and forget about it.

Lying in bed, tossing and turning, you struggle to fall asleep because you can't turn your brain off. As you lie there, you get a quick idea for a blog post. But eventually, you manage to fall asleep, and you forget about it.

Any of these cases are easily possible. What's worse: you'll remember those ideas, but only when you are in a situation where you can't do anything about it. When inspiration hits, you need to be able to record new ideas. Some solve this problem by carrying a notebook, or keeping one next to their bed. But then, there are other inherent problems. There is an old episode of Seinfeld where Jerry (a comedian) comes up with a new idea to develop into his act. He wakes up in the middle of the night, rolls over, and writes it down in his bedside notebook. The entire rest of the episode involves him trying to figure out what he wrote because his handwriting was so messy.

The point is this: inspiration is everywhere, and you need a system for capturing that inspiration. Without one, you fall victim to the limits of your own brain, and you struggle with the "Oh yeahhhhh..." moments at inconvenient times.

For me, the solution is Evernote. Evernote is a web-based application that allows you to create multiple virtual notebooks, and you can organize and tag your notes however you want. And while it is a powerful application on its own, its true effectiveness comes in its mobile applications.

Using this step-by-step process, I linked my Twitter account to my Evernote account. Now, since I can send SMS text messages to Twitter, I can essentially send a text message to Evernote. This removes all the limitations of needing a fancy smartphone to take advantage of Evernote's mobile capabilities. If you do have a smartphone, you can install the Evernote app and send pictures to Evernote, while managing your notebooks on the go. In either case, keeping track of your inspiration is now much simpler.

Think of the above examples. Now, when you are with your friends, you can pull out your phone quick and make a note of that idea. You can make note of your marketing idea (or even take a photo of the billboard and save it). And you can make note of that bedside revelation, without fear of your handwriting ruining the whole deal.

Great ideas and inspiration can be saved at anytime, anywhere, and can be managed and tagged from your computer. This gives you a complete system of preserving thoughts and ideas that could be invaluable to you and your business, especially if you are like me - only getting inspiration when it is inconvenient.

You can join Tom on his Facebook page as well, or follow him on Twitter.

To read more practical advices from our expert guest authors, you can subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also choose to receive updates via emails. 

Do join our Facebook page as well: